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Keep in mind that I have NEVER been able to get PE to do anything useful.

Jim,

I'm curious as to what you mean by useful? Is it because of your props, you don't like the effects? The statement "anything useful" is very broad and I'm not understanding if it is a preference for SS over SE or is it that you have had issues setting up PE for your props/views.

I'm all for SS but having used PE, I see many possibilities that SS can not do. If you need help with PE I can do what I can to help or at least point you in the right direction.

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One thing that I know I would have like to have seen was more pre-built effects available in Sequencer. I also would have loved to be able to do basic tasks, like simply setup an arch with a single chase to start at second 1 and slowly go across the arch and auto calculate to end at second 8 without have to manually set the timings myself.

Also, and maybe it's just me, but when starting a new sequence, Sequencer seems to want to use the models I created in PE, it would have been great if it would have accepted all of the visualizations I built in Visualizer as well.

This is hour 6 of the beta, let's see where it goes from here, but if these features are the only ones available, I'll see no reason to upgrade for me.

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I'm curious as to what you mean by useful? Is it because of your props, you don't like the effects? The statement "anything useful" is very broad and I'm not understanding if it is a preference for SS over SE or is it that you have had issues setting up PE for your props/views.

I can make nice effects in the Effects Generator, but never was able to actually do anything with those effects. I was never able to make that effect actually appear on pixels at whatever time that I wanted it. Keep in mind that there was essentially no docs on PE during the S4 beta, and I had given up on PE by the time that there were docs on it. Poked through them once or twice and could not figure it out.

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So I take it that s5 looks like the pixel editor and is somewhat setup the same way as the pixel editor? What pre built effects are available in s5? Can anyone share some screenshots of it?

Here's a couple of screenshots I took of things I have found interesting and useful. I'm sure there's more, but I'm still poking around.

When you create a New Musical/Animation Sequence you are presented with this page, at the bottom note that you can add additional effects for each prop. See next pic. I chose 3 for now and am playing around overlaying 3 effects for each prop.

Here's what the 3 additional effects look like in SE. In this picture I staggered 3 effects on top of each other. It can be hit or miss with the effects. Hint - If you use black as a color in the effect, the others show thru better.

These are the effect included in S5.

When you go into the Effect Generator, some new features have been added. If you unlock the effect, you will have these features available also.

This is just a couple of screen shots I have done so far, I've been busy playing

I still have not figured out how to add/ incorporate a SS .sup file in the new SE. I'm sure it's do-able, but I can't seem to figure it out.

Alan...

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I can make nice effects in the Effects Generator, but never was able to actually do anything with those effects. I was never able to make that effect actually appear on pixels at whatever time that I wanted it. Keep in mind that there was essentially no docs on PE during the S4 beta, and I had given up on PE by the time that there were docs on it. Poked through them once or twice and could not figure it out.

PE, now SE does lack the timing for effects that is available in SS. Which is why I like SS, I dial the effects in to the 1/10 of second. I am still waiting for docs on how to get SS into the new SE. Having said that, the new SE imho offers a lot the Superstar doesn't and probably never will. I found SS to be very tedious in that I had to sequence every second of the song or let the prop go black. SE/PE offers the ability to add effects to the prop in a part of the song I didn't have anything for sequenced for SS. It also offers the ability to put a single effect over all the props (which is a very cool effect over a large area.

I did have to setup new views for PE, I started by "importing from visualizer" and modified from there. I will dig up links to tuts, and links I found helpful for getting started with PE.

Alan, No I had not. As I said, the only time I was attempting to play with PE was during the S4 beta and there was only a VERY short quick start guide that did not help. I did not have time this evening to watch the videos, but I skimmed the pdf and I think that may have helped with my major roadblock of not being able to apply effects to the pixels in the timeline. It's still going to take a change to the way I think as it behaves backwards from the way I think and do things in SE (on the rare occasion that I do anything in SE). BTW, the playing I was doing this evening was in 4.3.18 as I have not loaded S5 on this computer.

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I downloaded s5 on my old computer to see what it all looks like. To me S5 appears to be an updated version of the pixel editor. I still plan on using Superstar no matter what but I cannot find a way to export effects from Superstar to S5. If someone figures this out please post it here. I used pixel editor for some effects last year and to me it was easy to learn. Going to play around with it for a little while and go from there.

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I still plan on using Superstar no matter what but I cannot find a way to export effects from Superstar to S5. If someone figures this out please post it here.

There is hope! I just did and it worked, I am able to see the SS prop in action, then add SE effects to other props. It was a process which as soon as I did it, I had a brain fart and promptly forgot the steps. I'll do it again and write the steps down. I'll start another thread to let this one die out. Something I wanted to try but didn't set the file up properly and that is to see if PE effects can be layered on top of SS effects.

Alan...

1

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Yes you can layer PE effect over SS I just finished a sequence in PE. You can also create a SS sequence export as LMS. Then create a new musical sequence with your controller configuration and save it. Open that file in PE, Open the SS file you exported to create the LMS file in PE also. As long as the prop is the same​ in both SE And PE yo Can use the migration tool in PE to bring The SS sequence in. You will get another screen to select the prop. My prop in PE is called CCR Tree. The same name as in SE. You check it in the box nd it will bring the complete file into the PE grid. If you click it and open the effects you will see it is a movie AVI format and you can also see the file location. At this point you can now create another effect pin wheel butterfly or curtain an insert it on the line under the SS file you migrated in. You can also do more as long as you have a SS license. I hope this helps and not confused anyone.

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Don't give up on it just yet, in just a few hours of poking around there is lots of things possible and new features and effects now that were not in S4 or xlights. ie. multiple effects on the same (all) props at the same time (rgb) Some things have changed and that is to be expected. The lack of docs doesn't help the level confusion some are experiencing. If you are attempting to load existing sequences be sure to load COPIES or backups to play around with.

If you weren't using or trying PE before you might be behind the 8 ball a little. The docs are still available for PE. Watch the videos for adding effects in PE, it's very similar. If you like an effect, add it as a favorite to make it easier to get to.

It's too bad some seem disappointed, to me this opens a lot of possibilities for sequencing that haven't been available before. I am waiting for documentation.

Currently I am stuck on being able to load existing sequences that had both PE and/or Superstar Intensity files. I haven't figured out how to load Intensity files at all.

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Okay, I have been messing with S5 for three days now and I have gotten so frustrated that I have had to walk away from it. Trying to open something as simple as Channel Settings is really getting on my nerves. Click on a channel and nothing happens, the help file says click on the channel button but there isn't a channel button or right click on a channel and select Channel Settings but it isn't there. I don't even have channel buttons, I have a channel tree.

Gotta walk away for now, not going to throw a $4,000 laptop across the room.

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Okay, I have been messing with S5 for three days now and I have gotten so frustrated that I have had to walk away from it. Trying to open something as simple as Channel Settings is really getting on my nerves. Click on a channel and nothing happens, the help file says click on the channel button but there isn't a channel button or right click on a channel and select Channel Settings but it isn't there. I don't even have channel buttons, I have a channel tree.

Gotta walk away for now, not going to throw a $4,000 laptop across the room.

Yep, I also dislike/ hate change. I'm gonna wait, not even thinking about it, continuing to make faces sing as normal on S4. Once the bugs are worked out I still may wait to jump in since I'm not having problems.